Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: seminolewind on March 15, 2013, 04:42:44 pm
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Found this tree in the woods near my property. This tree will yeild some very nice staves if it is good bow wood. There are ripening berries on it very broad bright green leaves. I live near Tampa, FL.
Thanks guys !
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No answer for you I'm a noob at bowyering, but noticed your handle and laughed- we've got a couple buffet restaurants up here in the Tallahassee area called 'Seminole Wind'. Lol
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You are correct that is a Mulberry.
Grady
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Yeah, it's red mulberry.
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Looks like mulberry to me.
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Found this tree in the woods near my property. This tree will yeild some very nice staves if it is good bow wood. There are ripening berries on it very broad bright green leaves. I live near Tampa, FL.
Thanks guys !
What you have there is mulberry. I'm very sure of it. The fruits are a dead give-away. Whether it is white or red mulberry I am not 100% sure. In winter the leaf scars contain 4 or more little dots similar to beech but beech has very obvious bark. Is mulberry any good for bow wood?
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Thanks guys looks like I'll be getting out the saw and some wedges! Anyone have experience with this wood? And wanna give advice?
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Yep, Mulberry. I have never worked with it yet, but I have two staves drying right now that I cut around Xmas. Been reading up on it a bunch, and discussing it with others. Seems it is a good candidate for a sap wood back or a hard wood back. I'm thinking I will make both and judge for myself. 10%-20% wider than Osage seems to be the consensus. Some are real proponents of it's bow properties!
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I just posted a recurve made from mulberry. I've made a few other bows from it and I love it, it's one of my favorite local woods. It's alot like osage just softer. I would go with slimbobs advice just make it 10-20% wider, and I would say he is also right about the sapwood being ok for the back. I've never had a problem with it. It bends very nicely with steam though so I would recommend some recurves.
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I've used mulberry it's very beautiful wood an it also makes very nice bows
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Mulberry is excellent bow wood. Make a mulberry bow 10% bigger than an osage of the same weight. Mulberry is a cousin of osage. If handled properly you can also use the sapwood of mulberry for bows or leave a ring or two on the back of your bow. Makes a nice contrast with the heartwood.
Mulberry typically has large growth rings. I've seen some that were almost 1/2" thick. The wood is considerably lighter physically than osage and that is what helps it compete with osage as a bow wood.
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Hey Pat - when you say if handled right you can keep some sapwood on the mulberry. If a guy wanted to do this, would you just let it dry with the bark on?
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Make sure you collect the fruit
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YEP
As a kid we'd put plactic down and climb up and shake away. Mom make some awsome jelly and cake. Granddady use to cook and press them but put the juice in in his corn shine. I hav'nt done that but I have added it to HICKORY and MAPLE SYURP. Along with a little honey is not bad.
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Mulberry is real good bow wood. I've made a couple out of it. Been about 4yrs ago I think. I woould debark it and leave the sapwood on it and seal the back as well as the ends. I did not leave the sapwood on mine and wished I had because its such a nice contrast between the sap and the heartwood. Looks like a real nice tree. Good find. Danny
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If the wood is harvested, prepared and stored properly until seasoned so the sapwood doesn't have a chance to begin deteriorating then the sapwood can be used. I have built mulberry bows with all sapwood, 50/50 sap/heart wood, heartwood with a sapwood backing and all heartwood. They all worked well but the more sapwood on the bow the thicker it will be.
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So just leave a ring or two of sap wood on for contrast
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Red mulberry alright. Personally I'd rather have the fruit every year than the stave. Before you cut it look around for some male mulberry trees, which don't produce fruit (I read that on the internet. lo). If I was you I'd cut the male trees instead of the females. The fruit is is very good when ripe.
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yup thats it. Mulberry is an awesome wood. My favorite wood to work with, its very elastic and not as heavy as osage so its great. Im not particularly fond of the sapwood though but the heartwood is awesome.
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Good advice all the way around I appreciate everyone in this forum ! its a wealth of knowledge. I have a lot of Mulberry trees around my property and a lot of them producing fruit. The only problem is that they are all very small and wirey...could be due to the fact that it is a semi-swampy area. The one I am planning on cutting has a very straight and knot free sectionabout 7' long and 5" across. I am glad to hear that mulberry sapwood can be used since this stave would be a little small to make it completely out of heart, plus I will like that contrast ! I'll post some pics tomorrow when it is cut and on the ground. PS i'm also planning on letting it dry with the bark on and the ends sealed, does this sound like a good idea?
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If you let it dry with the bark on it will be a pain in the ass to get off later . If you decide to take the bark off now make sure you seal the whole log I made a mistake with mulberry once of peeling the bark off and not sealing it and ended up checking all over
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Roger that bark will be coming off ! Thanks
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Ok. So it's established that it is Mullberry. ;)
I've not honestly harvested wood specifically for bow making. I have far large format carving (Search "carving Benedict in Maple" on Youtube. that came froma log of maple that was hip high on it's side).
This is what I would do.
cut out the straight sections. Longer is better but even if you have some that are "short" you can splice them so after the longest premium sections are cut look for anything 36" - 40" and cut those out also.
Depending on size I would quarter the log at least and leave the bark on. Put it in a garage or basement or something where it can dry but not TOO fast. Keep it off the ground and paint the ends with cheap latex paint and possibly give it a mist of insectocide. Some carvers will wrap the wood in plastic and fume it with paint thinner to suffocate what ever may be in or under the bark. I haven't done that and never had a problem with anything that I dried in the garage and off the ground. If you see signs of insects kill em as mentioned above. I sprayed my wood with paint thinner... Grubs come running out of the holes and then die. That was a log of oak I started drying outside.
After several months the wood will shrink and the bark will naturaly seperate... or at least that has been my experience.
Unless you don't have access to a large bandsaw and or prefer to split it down to wedges I would quarter saw it into 1 3/4 (or so) slabs or "flitches". (there are attachments for chainsaws that do a great job of this on Ebay for $20.00). When you stack the wood to dry put skinny spacer between the boards. The thinner pieces will dry faster. The Quarter sawing recudes the tensions as it shrinks with reduces cracks and such. It may be able to be roughly split in a quarter sawn fashion.. I have never tried.
When it is dry you have a slab of bow blanks and backings. Pop off the bark and band saw from the bark edge the core or belly pieces you want by either cutting them straight and planning to back them OR follow a grain line +2 or 3. Each blank will have idealy oriented grain.
There is video on YouTube under Bickerstaff bows "how a bow is made" vid# 3 or 4 I think. He's talking about hickory but the concept is the same. It is a pretty efficient use of wood I think.
BTW that "V" splice is plenty strong and much faster/easier than a "W" splice.
Just my$.02
now... How do I get my hands on a segment say 36-40" long?
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Ok so I cut this one down...this stave is coming out of the middle portion of the tree, the bottom 4 ft were not useable. You guys were sure right there is way more sapwood than Osage, maybe this is bacause it is coming out of the middle portion of the tree. This log is almost 4" across do you think this will make a usable bow since it will almost all be sapwood ?
Thanks for the input !
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4" across
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I think so.
Where is the change from sap wood to heart wood? I don't think that dark spot is all there is of the heart wood.
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From what Im seeing that dark spot is the only heartwood there is no differentiation in color anywhere else in the rings...From what I have been reading on Red Mulberry not many people are using more than one ring of Sap on the back.
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I'm confused. That irregular dark heart does not look like mulberry heartwood to me, which should follow one annual growth ring more or less. The color is also off? I've never worked with mulberry, but now I'm really confused :P Just for clarification...are you 100% sure the wood pictured above is from the same tree that produced those fruits and leaves pictured in the opening post on the previous page?
By the way, even 100% mulberry sapwood bows have been made. It's better to use the heartwood, but if sapwood is all you got, go ahead. It'll just result in a slightly fatter and wider bow, as compared to the heartwood. But it can still make a nice bow!
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Yeah it's really weird when I cut the tree down I was expecting to see Normal heart/sap differentiation but it's not there. I am 100% sure it's the same tree the part above this stave was full of mulberries in various stages of ripeness. On the other end of the log there is better sap/heart difference. Oh well screw it I'll build it and see what happens once it's cured
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Wow a really clean stave and yes it will work fine to use the sapwood just might end up with alittle more string follow but if that was my stave I would not hesitate to make a bow with it